page_title: Grave
section_title: Graveyard and cemeteries
hierarchical_section_title: Grave / Graveyard and cemeteries
caption_attribution_description: Mausoleun of Rabbi Moses Sofer and family.
context_page_description: A grave is a location where a dead body is buried. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries.
  Certain details of a grave, such as the state of the body found within it and any objects found with the body, may provide information for archaeologists about how the body may have lived before its death, including the time period in which it lived and the culture that it had been a part of.
  In some religions, it is believed that the body must be burned for the soul to survive; in others, the complete decomposition of the body is considered to be important for the rest of the soul.
context_section_description: Graveyards were usually established at the same time as the building of the relevant place of worship (which can date back to the 8th to 14th centuries) and were often used by those families who could not afford to be buried inside or beneath the place of worship itself. In most cultures those who were vastly rich, had important professions, were part of the nobility or were of any other high social status were usually buried in individual crypts inside or beneath the relevant place of worship with an indication of the name of the deceased, date of death and other biographical data. In Europe this was often accompanied with a depiction of their family coat of arms.
  Later graveyards have been replaced by cemeteries.
caption: Interior of the Jewish memorial in Bratislava, Slovakia (with the grave of the rabbi Chatam Sofer at the left).
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